THE waiting is over.

Today, the PlayStation 2 is launched in the UK, and it's not just games fans up and down the country who are on tenterhooks as Sony's new machine is unveiled.

For the PlayStation 2 offers far more than its predecessor.

The PS2 is not just a games machine. It will also let you access the Internet, plug in various gadgets from digital cameras to printers, and, most importantly in many people's eyes, it also lets you play DVD movies.

At a price tag of £300, this means it is competing on good terms with plenty of the dedicated DVD players on the market.

The first PlayStation was launched over five years ago, and in its lifetime, it has seen a revolution in the computer games market. The games industry is now worth more than the movie industry, Hollywood taking a back seat to Tokyo.

Sony's first machine has played no small part in this, roundly trouncing its rivals in the console market.

Despite being a technically inferior machine, the PlayStation has seen off Nintendo's N64, which has been relying on the charms of Pikachu and his Pokmon friends to survive. The PlayStation always had better games and the very best marketing money can buy.

PlayStation 2 is moving into new territory, and taking on new opposition. Sony is offering a machine with a great deal of versatility. This is the machine that will, eventually, be able to do all of the things that a PC can do.

The basic machine does not include a modem, but online capabilities are something that Sony are keen to add, while the later release of a hard drive will allow owners to store a sizeable amount of information, instead of relying on the sparse 8MB of room on the machine's memory cards.

However, if you start adding up the likely cost of these extra products, then you start to reach the kind of sum you can buy a high-quality PC for.

The PS2 has the initiative right now, but two years down the line, will it be able to hold its own against the developing technology in the PC market?

Then, of course, there are its traditional rivals, Sega and Nintendo. Sega's Dreamcast is already on the market, and finally living up to its potential, while Nintendo's Gamecube is still some way off.

The Gamecube isn't likely to go toe-to-toe with the PS2, aiming instead for a younger audience, while the Dreamcast shot itself in the foot by suffering from a shortage of high-quality games in its early days. That's rectified now, but with Sony having 33 games available from day one, Sega may have missed a trick.

There's also a new kid on the console block - Microsoft will be launching their technically superb X-Box next year.

But enough quibbling. Right here, right now, the PS2 is the most advanced games console on the market.

Even without the new games coming out, it has a glittering array of titles available, as every single PlayStation game ever released should work on the new machine.

In many cases older games will look even better on the PS2.

Beating at the heart of the PS2 is what Sony have dubbed the Emotion Engine, a 128-bit processor backed up with 32MB of main memory, which allows the machine to manipulate 150 million pixels every second. What that ugly technical talk transforms into is some of the most beautiful graphics ever seen.

Racing games look almost photo-realistic, cut-sequences in games are more breathtaking than most movies, and all this is backed up with Dolby sound and the pick-up-and-play accessibility the PlayStation has always offered.

The DVD playback may not be absolutely top quality, but unless you've got a huge widescreen television and a top-notch sound system, you're not likely to be able to tell.

It's more than adequate, and is really just one extra selling point for a machine that will stand or fall by the quality of its games. If they don't cut the mustard, neither will the PS2.

But this is a seriously classy machine and PS2 is a surefire bet when it comes to who'll win the console wars.